Elsie Janis

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Elsie Janis

Elsie Janis (* 16th March 1889 in Marion County , Ohio ; † 26. February 1956 in Beverly Hills , California ) was an American singer , song poet, actress and playwright . Her performance as a troop supervisor during the First World War made her immortal as the “darling of the AEF” ( American Expeditionary Forces ).

Live and act

She was born Elsie Bierbauer (also: Beerbower) in Marion County, Ohio, into the family of John Eleazar Bierbauer and his wife Jane Elizabeth, a née Cockrell. Brought to the stage by her ambitious mother at the age of two, she performed successfully in variety shows as “Little Elsie” at the age of eleven. As she grew up, she began to perfect her show talents under the stage name Elsie Janis. It made headlines in London and Broadway to the applause of critics in England and America. Here she appeared in a number of successful "shows", including The Vanderbilt Cup (1906), The Hoyden (1907), The Slim Princess (1911) and The Century Girl (1916). Elsie also attended the grand opening gala of the Brown Theater in Louisville, Kentucky on October 5, 1925.

She had an equally successful career as a screenwriter for Hollywood and as a composer. She wrote the original screenplay for Close Harmony (1929); she was also composer and production manager for the revue sound film Paramount on Parade (1930), which was also produced in a French and a Romanian version. Together with the director Edmund Goulding she wrote the song Love, Your Magic Spell Is Everywhere for Gloria Swanson , who performed it in the "part talkie" The Trespasser (1929). Janis's song Oh, Give Me Time for Tenderness was sung in the 1939 Bette Davis film Dark Victory , which was also directed by Goulding.

During World War I she tirelessly advocated the interests of British and American soldiers by raising money for war bonds. But she also appeared near the front in troop support, making her one of the first stars of the American "show biz", which did it in a war waged on foreign soil. Less than ten days after the armistice, she went to the HMV studio to sing several music numbers from her revue Hallo Amerika in the funnel, including the song Give Me the Moonlight, Give Me the Girl . She wrote about her wartime experiences in her 1919 book The Big Show: My Six Months with the American Expeditionary Forces and made a short “Vitaphone” film about it in 1926 called Behind the Lines .

A musical about this time called Elsie Janis and the Boys was recently written by Carol J. Crittenden. John T. Prestianni composed the music for it. It premiered on August 15, 2014 at the Wortley-Peabody Theater in Dallas, Texas.

Janis had her private home on the east side of High Street in Columbus, Ohio, across from Ohio State University's forerunner, Ohio Field . After her mother died, she sold the house. In 1932 she married Gilbert Wilson, 16 years her junior, with whom she lived in the Phillips Manor neighborhood of Sleepy Hollow, New York, which was formerly North Tarrytown. She later moved to the Los Angeles, California area, where she lived until her death. Her last film was Women in War , made in 1940 with Wendy Barrie and Peter Cushing .

Janis died in her Beverly Hills home when she was 66. She was buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. For her achievements in the film industry, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6776 Hollywood Boulevard.

Filmography (selection)

Actress in silent films from 1915 to 1925:

  • 1915: The Caprices Of Kitty [role: Katherine "Kitty" Bradley]
  • 1915: Betty in Search of a Thrill
  • 1915: Nearly a Lady [role: Frederica Calhoun]
  • 1919: The Imp [role: Jane Morgan]
  • 1919: A Regular Girl [role: Elizabeth Schuyler]
  • 1925: Bobbed Hair

Sound films:

  • 1926: Behind the Lines [vocals: songs "When Yankee Doodle Learns to Parlez Vous Français", "Quand Madelon", "In the Army", "Good-Bye-ee"]
  • 1929: Close Harmony (screenplay)
  • 1929: The Trespasser (title hit "Love, Your Magic Spell is Everywhere" with E. Goulding)
  • 1930: Slightly Scarlet (lyrics "You Still Belong To Me")
  • 1930: Paramount Parade ( Paramount on Parade ) [production line; Songs "Anytime's The Time To Fall In Love", "I'm True To The Navy Now" (with Jack King), "Paramount on Parade", "What Did Cleopatra Say"]
  • 1930: Madam Satan (music, lyrics to "Auction Number" (1930), "All I Know Is You're in My Arms", "Low Down")
  • 1931: The Squaw Man (screenplay)
  • 1937: The Sheik Steps Out (lyrics "Song of the Sands")
  • 1939: Victim of a great love ( Dark Victory ) (song "Oh, Give Me Time for Tenderness")
  • 1940: Women in War [role: Matron O'Neil, formerly Mrs. Starr]
  • 1946: Paramount News Issue No. 37 (documentary short film; music)

Web links

Commons : Elsie Janis  - Collection of Images

Audio samples

  • Selected recordings by Elsie Janis from the 1910s at Internetarchive.org
  • Record Victor 60 090 - Elsie Janis: Fascinating Base-Ball Slide, Comic Song (Music & Lyrics by Elsie Janis), aufgen. 1912 youtube
  • Record Victor 22 079-A with the song “Love (Your Spell Is Everywhere)”, sung by Gloria Swanson, with orchestra. 1929 youtube
  • movie extract from "Paramount on Parade" (1930) song "sweepin 'the clouds away"

Illustrations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ YouTube offers a film clip with this song ( memento from October 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ YouTube offers a film clip with the song, sung by Vera van See
  3. ↑ a recording of the song Give Me The Moonlight Give Me The Girl (And Leave The Rest To Me) , copyr. 1918 Music & Lyrics By Albert Von Tilzer & Lew Brown, sung by Sam Ash, with orchestra, on YouTube
  4. ^ "Elsie Janis entertains the troops from the back of a truck. She calls a French soldier up to sing with her, then dances to an American song while everyone sings, and finally shares the stage with an English soldier. " , see. IMDb and silentera.com , there also a still photo from the film. “Vitaphone” was a needle-point film process, cf. Jan-Christopher Horak and James zu Hüningen in the dictionary of film terms ; a Vitaphone apparatus shown. at heathenmedia  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / heathenmedia.co.uk  
  5. ↑ cf. roundtown.com  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / roundtown.com  
personal data
SURNAME Janis, Elsie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bierbower, Elizabeth; Bierbower, Elsie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American actress, singer, composer
DATE OF BIRTH March 16, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Marion County , Ohio , United States
DATE OF DEATH February 26, 1956
Place of death Beverly Hills , California , United States